East Village welcomes its first residents

As is tradition around here, hundreds of student, faculty and staff volunteers spent hours in the Texas summer heat Wednesday and Thursday to help 3,000-plus Baylor freshmen get moved into their new homes.

Approximately 350 of those freshmen moved into Baylor’s newest residential community, East Village. Built along Bagby Avenue between 2nd and 4th streets (near the McLane SLC and Baylor Sciences Building), East Village includes two residential buildings (Teal Residential College and Earle Hall) which host about 700 students total, plus a third building that includes a new dining facility and administrative offices.

East Village offers four different types of living spaces: pod units, where four double bedrooms (eight students) share a bathroom on the hall; cove units, which are like pods with the addition of a closed entrance for increased privacy; double semi-suites, where two double bedrooms (four students) share a bathroom in-between; and apartments, which house 3-4 students each and include both a bathroom and kitchen.

During the design process, Campus Living and Learning staff sought out feedback from students about many of the decisions made for East Village, from furniture options (they chose loft beds over movable desks that feature plenty of work space) to study spaces. In each building, one room’s purpose was left completely up to the students; the engineering students in Teal chose to make it a technology lab, while Earle Hall’s pre-health students asked for a seminar room/library.

Both Teal and Earle also include live-in faculty families (one each), offices for 5-7 professors, and classrooms. The dining hall features the largest rotisserie and Mongolian grill in Waco and a gluten-free station; the building will soon also offer a convenience store and a Red Mango (Zagat’s top-rated frozen yogurt chain).

East Village joins North Village (2004) and Brooks Village (2007) as new Baylor residence halls that have opened in the last 10 years. Prior to those, the last new Baylor residence was South Russell, built in 1967. This year, South Russell is closed for a massive renovation; each of Baylor’s older halls will undergo a similar update, one a year, over the next decade or so. Even with South Russell offline, about 40% of Baylor’s student body will live on campus this fall.